As Rep. Andy Kim and First Lady Tammy Murphy battle for coveted county endorsements in the Senate primary, a pattern is taking hold.
When it’s a fair fight, Kim wins. When it’s rigged by the bosses, he loses.
So far, Kim has won endorsements in five counties, starting with Monmouth, where the chairman invited him to speak and acted as a referee, encouraging delegates to vote their minds by secret ballot. Kim crushed.
But Kim has lost four counties now, most recently on Thursday night in Somerset, where the county chair, Peg Schaffer, endorsed Murphy off the bat, sent out supportive letters on party stationery, and insisted that delegates raise their hands in public so everyone could keep score. Murphy won.
Kim got another stiff arm in Bergen, where chairman Paul Juliano didn’t even return Kim’s phone calls and texts over several weeks, perhaps because Juliano was given his $280,000 a year job at the Sports Authority by Gov. Phil Murphy. He finally allowed Kim to briefly address delegates on Zoom for 15 minutes a few days before the convention.
“It was never a fair fight from the outset,” Kim says. “The whole rationale for this system in New Jersey is that these are people working in the Democratic Party, so they take it seriously, and can vet the candidates based on who will be strongest in November.
“But then they’re not giving me a chance to engage. We’re just not given those opportunities. It’s challenging and frustrating.”
As for who would be strongest in November, the answer to that is Kim without doubt. He’s better qualified, by a mile. He’s won three times in a district that Trump won twice. He’s a much better speaker, with a more compelling personal story of service. And after his three campaigns, we know that Republicans have already dug deep into his closet. What will they find when they dig into Murphy’s?
“If I’m the Democratic nominee, I could essentially guarantee a win,” Kim says. “I don’t think you can say the same about Tammy.”
Granted, it’s hard to imagine Republicans winning a statewide race with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. But the latest Monmouth poll, released last week, does point to some glaring weaknesses of the First Lady.
The poll didn’t measure the head-to-head contest, but it reinforced earlier polls showing Kim with a substantial lead. It found that Democrats are feeling the love for Kim, with 48 percent have “favorable” views of him, and a miniscule 2 percent “unfavorable.” Opinion on Murphy was split, with 24 percent “favorable” and 13 percent “unfavorable.”
The more striking finding concerns independent voters, who tend to decide general elections in New Jersey. Just over half say they have ruled out voting for Murphy, giving Republicans a rich target to harvest votes in the fall, should she take the nomination.
Just 30 percent of independents said the same of Kim. He believes that’s because the party brand was soiled by the bribery indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez, who was embraced by the machines from the start, even after his first corruption trial ended with a split jury.
“What I hear from independent voters is that they’re really upset about what happened with Menendez, and if it looks like the Democratic Party is going to the same old machine politics, I think we’re going to have a real crisis when it comes to drawing independent voters,” he says.
Patrick Murray, who runs the poll, warned that voters could change their feelings in the three months before the June primary. He didn’t ask about head-to-head preferences because he felt it would be unreliable at this stage.
But he agreed Kim has an advantage among independents that “could matter if this ends up being a close contest.”
If you’re a Democrat, ask yourself: Are you up for taking that chance?
In the competition for county endorsements, Murphy has a lead that’s likely to grow as the contest moves to big machine counties, like Middlesex, Essex, and Hudson. Her four wins came in counties that include 26 percent of Democratic voters, compared to 15 percent in the five smaller counties Kim has won.
But Kim is leading a revolt against the machines, and he says he knew from the start that Murphy’s position as the wife of the governor would give her a huge advantage at this stage. Come June, he says, he’ll win on the strength of the grassroots voters who are packing his public meetings and giving him standing ovations. They are sick of these machines running the party, he says.
To him, the mood feels like 2018, when grassroots groups stung by Trump’s win sprung up to nominate strong candidates for Congress who were never part of the machines, including Reps. Mikie Sherrill, and Tom Malinowski. (I’d add Rep. Josh Gottheimer.)
“Look at me, and Tom and Mikie,” Kim says. “We were all outsiders, and as a result, we don’t feel as beholden. It’s the same with the grassroots people. That’s why they’re not going to do whatever the county chairs tell them to do. So, the defiance we see now very much comes out of that.”
Kim says several elected officials drafted to support Murphy have told him that they’ll jump to his side in the June vote when the curtains are closed.
“They say, ‘Look, I support you, but you can’t tell anyone, and if that goes public, I’ll deny it,’” Kim says. “They don’t feel they can vote their conscience.”
Peg Schaffer, the party chair in Somerset, says that is by design. Delegates should not vote their consciences, she says; they should follow the preferences of those who elected them, as best they can guess it.
“They’re not voting for themselves,” she says. “They’re voting for their district.”
And besides, she says, she would never punish someone who defied her by denying them a political opportunity or a patronage job. Trust her.
To me, Kim makes the more persuasive case. These contests in the machine counties are fake, and because of that, it was almost inevitable that Murphy would win this inside game.
When it comes to the June vote, though, my money is still on Kim. It’s a secret ballot, after all.
More: Tom Moran columns
Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or (973) 986-6951. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
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